Emery's 4th Birthday Party-- Belle style!

For Emery's 4th Birthday party we decided theme it around Belle, from Beauty and the Beast.  We invited 5 of Emery's closest friends and had a small party Sunday (her actual birthday) from 2-4 in the afternoon.  It was low key and the girls had a blast.

Here was her invitation:

And then this was attached to the back:

I had a gold tablecloth that we used, Emery set out our fancy beaded placemats and we stuck some fake roses in a row for the centerpiece....and that was about all we did to decorate the table!

As the party favor I sewed little "book bags" for all the girls, since Belle loves to read.  They aren't perfect but for mostly winging the pattern was really happy with how they came out!

On the table was their craft-- a magic mirror that they could decorate with fancy jewels.  The oval is cardboard covered in metallic wrapping paper, and then I cut all the glitter paper out with my silhouette which made it so easy.  I put their first initial on the back so they wouldn't get mixed up.

Here is a picture of Em's magic mirror once she finished!

We played "pin the petal on the rose" as our game.

Time to open presents... Emery got SO many awesome books and unbelievably no repeats!  Perfect presents for our little book worm!

We served cake, fruit & caramel dip (courtesy of Chick-fil-A), fruit snacks, and cheese and crackers... EASY!

I tried to make the icing look like little roses... success!

Singing to our girl!

And a blurry but documentary shot of all the girls who came! (Alaina, Merrin, Hailey, Em, Nora and Katherine)

Emery and I made a two tiered cake.. lemon and strawberry together YUM!

We let the girls dress up, dance around and then thankfully the weather outside was AMAZING so we played outside the rest of the time.  A really fun day!

Love our sweet girl!

Such a big 4 year old!

Em starts Dance!

After Em finished her week long "princess dance camp" this summer, she was dead set on starting dance this fall.  I, of course, was so excited as that's what I grew up doing, but we definitely wanted her to make the decision to try dance or stick with gymnastics like we had been doing the past year.  She was so excited to go buy her first pair of ballet shoes and tights :) (That pose on the right is ALL her)

Her class is 3 and 4 year olds and they have to wear a different color sock on each foot to help them follow the teacher's directions.  Oh their little buns are too cute!

First position :)

We chose a dance studio in Davidson and she just loves her class.  The teacher is really creative with the kids and teaches them a lot even though they think they are just "jumping over pretend rivers" haha.  There is a little window into the room so us parents can sit and watch the kids.  I'm really proud of how well she follows directions and I think it's hilarious how she checks herself out in the mirror the whole time while she's waiting her turn.

So proud of our little Ballerina!

Awana, Mini Chefs Class & Library!

Now being 3 years old, Emery has had a blast being enrolled in some big girl activities!  Since we still aren't sending her to a mommies morning out this year (I love our time together and I know she'll be off to kindergarten soon enough!), I wanted to make sure we signed her up for some fun activities where she could learn from others and be around kiddos her age.  First up, AWANA!

It's totally random but my sister was hired to train the AWANA workers at a nearby church here in Huntersville (so I knew it was a good program!).  I'm so glad Tara encouraged me to call and register Em this year (I tried last year but it was super disorganized and didn't happen) as she LOVES IT.  She has weekly memorization verses, some homework and lessons and she just eats all of it up.  She's learning so much about the bible and she gets so excited when she earns a badge for her vest.  She loves her teachers and even tells us about a couple friends that she sits by every week.  It's Wednesday nights from 6:30-8:00, which is a good chunk of time to be away from Mommy and having fun!

Next, I signed her up for some Mini Chef Classes through our local Parks & Rec that happens once a month.  She loves helping me cook in the kitchen and it's a fun class where they get to be creative and then eat everything they make.  The teacher is really engaging and Em always has a great time.  (Plus you can't beat a $2 class!)

And lastly, we've moved up to the Preschool Library time.  She was literally the only child listening and sitting still in the Toddler Storytime so I knew it was time to bump her up.  It's kiddos only and the parents just sit outside for 30 minutes... I'm not complaining!  They read books and always do a fun craft.  I'm so proud of her for going into all these things on her own and not being afraid at all! Big girl!

Emery's 1st Dentist appointment!

Em had a wonderful 1st trip to the dentist... maybe because she's not afraid of him at all because he's the daddy of her best friend :) Matt let her go through the treasure box BEFORE her appointment so she was feeling pretty special by the time her checkup came.  Such a big girl-- listened really well and loved helping the hygienist with all the tools :)

No cavity club!

While we were in Shelby we took advantage of seeing Lauren, Merrin & Woods for a quick playdate at their local park.  Fun times!

Dancing Princesses Camp for Em!

At the beginning of the summer,  I was so excited to find a "Dancing Princesses" camp being offered by a nearby dance studio!  Since Emery doesn't attend preschool I wasn't sure how she would handle being away from me for 3 hours, but when I read the theme of the week I knew she would be just fine :)  She was SO excited when it was finally time for her camp!!

Turns out there were only 3 girls total enrolled in the camp, and one day she had both teachers all to herself as the other girls couldn't make it!  They learned a princess dance, did gymnastics, had snack time, colored and made different crafts everyday.... talk about everything Emery likes to do :)  I took pictures of her everyday before she went in... the poses are all her doing!

Look at this crown they made one day (she wanted Will in the picture b/c she missed him!):

On Friday, they performed a little dance for the parents so Kyle and I both went and watched.  She did so well the first little bit and then got distracted with her wand and played with that for a little bit while the other girls danced HAHA.  But then she picks it back up at the end. 

Here is the whole video:

Afterwards we went to lunch with Kyle at Chick-Fil-A (her fav) and split a milkshake to celebrate her amazing dance performance :) She was so proud of herself.

While Emery was in class all week I was able to get a ton of freelance projects finished and we managed to paint our master bedroom (finally!).  It's amazing how much you can get done with only a baby in the house, ha! So proud of our girl though and thankful how much she loved going to camp!

Em's Swim Class!

We decided to not enroll Emery in gymnastics for the summer so she could take a swim class again from the YMCA like she did last year.  She was so excited!

The first day of class was a little rough only because one of the 6 girls was deathly afraid of the water, which in turn made all the other girls scared. (Yes the poor teacher having to deal with 6 toddler girls!)  This class comes after they have completed the mommy & me course (which is what we did last year) but I don't think that girl had completed it so I'm not sure why they let her take this class in the first place.  Either way, it was somewhat hilarious seeing all the girls tear up for no reason and once they got that day out of the way they all had a blast the rest of the time.  

Here is a video I took of Emery afterwards.... she was totally clueless why she had cried during class haha:

Like I said the rest of the time was awesome.  It was a two week intensive class Mon - Thurs.  Emery really took big strides this year being able to lift herself out of the pool with just her arms, float on her back in the shape of a T, swim across the entire pool wearing the bubble on her back and just being comfortable if she gets water on her face (she used to melt down if it got in her eyes).   She looked forward to swimming everyday and I'm proud of her for keeping up with the other bigger girls!

Here is a video of her swimming across the whole pool!  Took her a little longer than the 4 and 5 year olds but I was still so proud of her!

And little Will cooperated so well with the swim class and slept during the entire thing both weeks.  Don't worry I went out and bought him a "boy" hat the following week as Emery's hand-me-down hat wasn't cutting it for Kyle :)

We didn't join our neighborhood pool this year so I'm glad we did this class to get her comfortable with the water again.  Proud of our girl!